Friday, March 27, 2009

The 13 chief executives emerged from the 90-minute meeting pledging to cooperate with the administration’s efforts to shore up the banking industry and the broader economy. On a bright day with the cherry blossoms in bloom, administration officials and the bankers presented a unified message to the nation: We’re all in this together...

“I’m of the feeling that we’re all in this together,” said Vikram S. Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, shortly after leaving the White House.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, used the same phrase to characterize the president’s message: “Everybody has to pitch in,” Mr. Gibbs said. “We’re all in this together.”

I have a real problem with this.

From my perspective, Obama ran as a Populist advocating issues such as Transparency in Federal Spending:

Sorry, but it looks to me as though President Obama is fast becoming a member of The Political Class. I'm tired of this coddling, not to mention the bailouts, of billionaires.

I hope that Congresswoman Rosa Delauro's husband Stan Greenberg gets a hold of Obama soon and shakes some sense into him.

Why Stan Greenberg? Because Greenberg seems to understand that elected officials should be representing the voters to the government, not the government to the voters.

Wikipedia notes Greenberg's "1985 study of Reagan Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan became a classic of progressive political strategy, and the basis for his continuing argument that Democrats must actively work to present themselves as populists advocating the expansion of opportunity for the middle class."

haha... You're absolutely right in the sense that Wikipedia is a less-than-perfect reference. Regardless, I agree with the premise that if you ignore the middle class (as Obama currently seems to be doing by offering the bankers more and more bailouts) your party will lose. As for whether Greenberg actually follows hiw own advice - very fair point.